Should the Whitehurst Freeway Go?

The District Department of Transportation is in the process of holding three public open houses where city officials are discussing the preliminary results of their studies on possible replacements (or not) of the Whitehurst Freeway. The last of these is on on Monday:

-- Open House 3 - Monday, November 21, 2005, St. Mary Armenian Church, 4125 Fessenden Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20037, 5:00 - 9:00 p.m.

There are several options which include (1) doing nothing, (2) removing it and connecting K Street to Canal Street, (3) removing it and connecting K Street to Canal Street and the Key Bridge (4) removing it and replacing it with a tunnel under K Street. DCist has a thorough analysis of the project and it's history.

This project could impact cycling in the district in many ways.

Pros: A rebuilt K Street might be made safer and/or nicer*. A ramp to Key Bridge could make for a more direct connection from the CCT and Rock Creek Park to the Key Bridge. Pushing 34th Street over the canal could make for a better connection from the CCT to M Street.

Cons: A connection from K street to Canal goes directly over the CCT trail head. A rebuilt K street will have more traffic and might be less safe and/or nice. Pushing 34th Street over the canal will remove a pedestrian bridge over the canal.

I personally like K Street the way it is and am unconvinced anyone but wealthy landowners in Georgetown will benefit from this. And I don't even drive on the Whitehurst. K Street, aka Water Street,  is a relatively safe street to bike on now so I'd hate to see that change. Also, Kevin Costner climbed off of the Whitehurst Freeway and into the Georgetown Metro (I know) in the movie No Way Out. Do you want Kevin Costner to die?

* They don't have to tear down Whitehurst to improve K street

Comments

[Contrarian]

What makes me suspicious is that the purported arguments in favor of tearing down the Whitehurst make no sense, so I have to wonder what the real motivation is. Currently the area is extremely pedestrian friendly, and it makes no sense that replacing the freeway with a groundlevel road would make it more pedestrian friendly. What it isn't is car-friendly -- it's hard to get onto and off of Water Street. But the reason has nothing to do with the freeway -- the problems are the canal, the steep hill going up to M Street, and congestion further east on K Street. Tearing down the freeway doesn't help any of that.

Water Street currently carries a lot of bikes -- possibly more per day than cars. What I most worry about is that cyclists are going to lose out -- that the road that exists today is going to be replaced by some benighted urban planner's idea of what a bike facility should look like, rather than a transportation resource.

[Douglas Willinger]

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/03/georgetowns-waterfront-freeway.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/04/whitehurst-freeway-future.html